Art and Crafts Abstracts

Freedman, Gladys. (1979). Women as artists and artisans in West Africa: Special reference to the Akan
             (Ghana). (Doctoral dissertation, Union University).

Abstract:  West African women perceive their activities and their roles differently from men; therefore I have found that being a woman, in regards to doing this particular study, is a definite advantage: I can relate the woman's side of the picture. In this study I have attempted to present a general picture with specific information of the role of West African women in art. The main subject of this research, Women As Artists And Artisans In West Africa; With Special Reference to The Akan, and the organization of the material that is documented, appear to be new. Also new, and peculiar to the field, is the perception of women as artists: it appears that they as artists, are considered on an equal plane with men as artists. In the field within the limited context of Ghana, there seems to be a special awareness of women as participants in art activities: Their unique contribution to art is acknowledged and acclaimed; yet this view of women may not always be perceptible since art is seen within the context of African culture, and not as a separate entity. While art activities, as all other activities, are distinctly different for men and women, the distinction is in the kind of activity: there is no indication that men's art work is considered to be superior to art made by women. For example, it is clearly known and understood that men carve wood and that women make pots: the sex of the artist is rot a factor in ascertaining the aesthetic and cultural value of a piece of art work: it is the knowledge and skill of the artist, male or female, that is important. This particular view is peculiar to the field and is different from the attitude expressed in the literature, that views women's art activities as the lesser arts. Reference to this view, as held by the non-Akan and the Akan is noted in the preceding pages of this chapter, and is discussed more fully in Chapters III and IV. There is still the question of the distinction made between “art for art's sake” and ”art for utilitarian purposes”, which puzzles the African. After completing the interviews of West African women in the Boston area, it puzzled me. I propose that the difference is a matter of degree and emphasis. The interviews yielded insight as well as information regarding the art-activities of women, their traditional role, and their deep feelings for their culture and tradition. The interviews provided a preliminary framework and direction to the field work in Ghana. The procedure, instrument device and questions of the interview are discussed in Appendix A; with complete summaries of the interviews in Appendix B.

Garrard, Timothy Francis. (1986). Brass-casting among the Frafra of Northern Ghana. (Volumes I and II)
          (Technology, metals, art, languages). (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles).

Abstract: The technological history of brass-casting in West Africa is imperfectly known, for many of its casting industries remain undocumented. This is especially true in the Voltaic region (the savanna of northern Ghana, Burkina Faso and north-eastern Ivory Coast), where until recently there were many casters. Their prolific output suggests access to large amounts of costly imported brass, and hence some degree of wealth. Almost nothing is known of the size, output or antiquity of these Voltaic casting industries, nor of their historical relationship to the more ancient schools of casting in the Middle Niger region to the north, and among the Akan to the south. This study examines one such Voltaic casting industry, that of the Frafra of northern Ghana. The economic background is first considered, with special attention to trade routes and the nature of the savanna brass trade. A detailed analysis is then made of Frafra brass artifacts, metal technology and the technical vocabulary of Frafra metalworking. Genealogies and family histories of the casters are considered, and lineages and workshops identified. This information is used to establish a chronology for the industry, and as a means to assess its size, output, development and decline. The origins of Frafra casting are then considered in the broader content of savanna history. The study demonstrates that the Frafra casting industry came into existence in the late eighteenth century, as a response both to growing savanna trade and to the rise of the Industrial Revolution in Europe. Its fortunes were always closely linked to these external factors, and its decline since the 1930s is seen as a direct consequence of the Great Depression. The methods and techniques utilised in this study offer new approaches to West African technological history, with an emphasis on quantification, chronology, and the identification of casters and workshops. It is suggested that such approaches may fruitfully be pursued to throw light on other previously undocumented casting industries.

Hess, Janet Berry, (1999). Imagining culture: Art and nationalism in Ghana. (Doctoral dissertation, Harvard
University)

Abstract: While the imposition of colonial authority had demonstrable effects on artistic production in Africa, we have yet to fully understand the manner in which different alliances of power responded to that authority. A critical aspect of the effort to articulate different notions of the “nation” in post-colonial art, and a phenomenon which has been insufficiently explored, is the employment and negotiation of modernity. In this dissertation I undertake an examination of the relationship between nationalism, modernism, and art production in Ghana, as well as a discussion of manifestations of nationalism in the present-day Ghanaian state. In the first two chapters of my dissertation I undertake an analysis of representations of nationalism associated with political parties in the Ghanaian independence era. The iconography of the dominant party focused on representations of Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, and in chapter one I explore the reliance on Nkrumah as a metaphorical allusion to political emancipation and panAfrican unity. In the second chapter I examine the efforts on the part of the Asante opposition to invoke in its iconography a historical legacy of hegemony. For both Asante chiefs and the emergent Asante entrepreneurial class, a critical mechanism in consolidating political allegiance was the invocation of historical representations of authority, and I discuss the role of these representations in constructing an alternative notion of “nation.” In attempting to construct an ideology of statehood which would supercede existing loyalties and affiliations, the administration of Nkrumah both encouraged investment in the arts and questioned the viability of subnational cultural traditions. In the third chapter of my dissertation I examine this tension between the Nkrumah administration's promotion of the arts and its advocacy of an aesthetic philosophy of generalized “Africanity.” The fourth chapter examines Ghanaian architecture and spatial organization, artistic forms which clearly reveal the relationship between a legacy of colonial rule and perceptions of nationalism. The spatial organisation and architecture of the Asante capital of Kumasi and the Ghanaian capital of Accra suggest that divergent responses were offered to the imposition of colonial authority, and I discuss the manner in which urban development in Kumasi and Accra has reflected a struggle between power alliances in the postcolonial era. In the concluding chapter of my dissertation, I address a phenomenon that was instrumental in the effort of the nineteenth-century Asante to construct a national culture, the pre-colonial festival known as odwira. Through the odwira, the Asante secured an association between the hierarchy of state authority and art which articulated—and ultimately constituted—the fundamental values of Asante society. While the odwira declined in significance following the colonial occupation of Asante, I argue that artistic representations and institutions associated with the odwira—notably those incorporated into the akwasidae and the recent anniversary celebration of the Asantehene Otumfuo Opoku Ware II—manifest an ongoing struggle over nationalism.

<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->

Patton, Sharon Frances (1980). THE ASANTE STOOL. (VOLUMES I AND II). (Doctoral dissertation,
Northwestern University).

Abstract: This dissertation is an art historical study of the stool in the largest Akan society, the Asante, in Ghana, West Africa. Research was conducted in Kumase city and the immediate areas, and is primarily about chiefs' stools. In Chapter I, the introduction, there is a brief description of the common uses of the stool, a discussion of art history and style and a survey of the current literature on Akan stools. Chapter II discusses the socio-historical context of the stool with emphasis upon the stool as a political emblem, both for the state and the chief. In this chapter, written European accounts, recorded indigenous oral traditions and field observations form the data. The stool as a sacred object is also discussed but less extensively than the stool as political emblem. In this context, the carving is viewed in terms of ancestral veneration, not of shrines or priests and priestesses. The next two chapters are the more important divisions of the manuscript. Chapter II, the Asante stool, is the analysis of the Akan and pre-Asante stool types and the Asante stool. There is considerable reliance upon written European accounts and indigenous oral traditions in order to describe the stool form and decoration. The same data are used to form a hypothesis about the origin and motivation for the ornamented rectangular stool one sees among the Asante chiefs today. The latter part of the chapter is about the stool and social status; the chiefs' stools. The design, the ornamentation, the categories based upon use and the treatment of stools owned by chiefs are discussed, utilizing the current literature and field data. Chapter IV is about the stool carver. The data are taken from the field research and include a brief history of Ahwia village (the 'stool-carving' village of Asante), identification of carvers including their apprenticeship and the carving--both technique and tools used--of the stool. Chapter V is a visual analysis of 269 Akan stools, of those photographed in Kumase area, the National Museum, the Museum of Mankind, the Kumase Cultural Center Museum and illustrated in the literature. There is identification of a tribal, the Akan, and the subtribal styles of Akan stools within the Asante, Central and Eastern Regions in Ghana. A brief chronology of Asnate stool designs that are mostly grouped into the pre-1920's, from around 1925 to 1960 and the post-1960's is summarized in the same chapter. The last chapter is a summary of the data and ideas given in the preceding chapters utilizing information revealed by the study of chiefs' stools in one political division of Asante, the kronti. This chapter is also a conclusion of the dissertation revealing that the data about stools do not always agree with prevailing attitudes or definitions as cited in the present literature; that a history of the stool exists and its sources are found among the Akan and non-Akan and that formal requisites have existed and persist because of the stool's function in society.

Quarcoopome, Nii Otokunor. (1993). Rituals and regalia of power: Art and politics among the Dangme and Ewe, 1800 to present. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles).<!--[endif]-->

<!--[if !vml]-->Abstract: This study employs artistic evidence to reconstruct the history of power and power relations among the Dangme and Ewe of Ghana and Togo from about 1800. It examines indigenous ideas about power and how these determine the nature of political authority and regalia at their most fundamental level, priesthood. It also documents some major artistic developments that followed the emergence of war and paramount chiefships in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These structures borrowed widely from Akan, Sudanic, and European art. Their layers of imported forms, imagery, and materials chronicle stages in the recent political evolution of the Dangme and the Ewe. The contrasting interpretations of history conveyed in some contemporary ritual performances reflect not only tensions between old and new leaders, but also, the dynamic nature of the nexus of art and ideology.

Ross, Mariama. Symbols of identity: Akan art in the popular culture of Ghana and its educational implications. 
           (2000). (Doctoral dissertation, Indiana Univeristy).

Abstract: This study looked at how indigenous culture influences and impacts contemporary arts, popular culture, and education within its native setting, and how knowledge of context can inform multicultural art education outside the setting. From fields of semiotics and anthropology, I formulated an approach using symbols as a language and I examined current applications of traditional culture in Ghana. Using the focus of traditional Akan Adinkra and kente symbols, I examined the motives of artists whose work includes these symbols, and their function in clothing, media, and advertising in contemporary Ghana. Additionally, I investigated how Ghana's school system teaches indigenous art forms. Research methodologies used in this study were drawn from ethnographic, qualitative inquiry methods. Data was collected through unstructured interviews with artists, art educators, consumers of popular culture, participant observations in schools and community events. Review of media and documents related to arts in schools and community life, including curricular materials, publications about Ghanaian culture, newspapers, television, and radio also were used. Interpretations were made from a content analysis. Findings revealed that artists adapt and reinterpret ancient symbolic images in their work to make direct and indirect statements about current issues. Local understanding of traditional symbols has waned, but is increasing due to interest from the West resulting in increased markets, and for which the images have been appropriated by corporate entities promoting a variety of commercializations. Ghana's schools do not consistently teach local arts for reasons based in its post-colonial circumstances. These reasons include the Euro-centric focus of its inherited British educational system and curriculum, as well as the rise of Christianity and declining indigenous religions. Documentation was done of instances of local arts being taught. Implications and recommendations are made for multicultural and global art education practice and research in Ghana and the United States. They include authentic teaching materials and enhanced study using conceptual-contextual instructional approaches.

Silverman, Raymond Aaron (1983).History, art and assimilation: The impact of Islam on Akan material
          culture (Ghana). (Doctoral dissertation, University of Washington).

Abstract:  Six Arabic-inscribed brass vessels located in four Akan villages in central Ghana (West Africa) served as the focus of a fifteen-month museum and field study. The bowls are revered today by their Akan owners as having supernatural powers. The dissertation examines several problems, specifically, when and how the bowls arrived in central Ghana, why they were assimilated into Akan culture as sacred objects and the influence they have had on the evolution of several Akan aesthetic traditions. The inscribed bowls appear to be rare remnants of a period dating from the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries during which extensive contact occurred between the cultures of the Western Sudan and the Middle East. The interaction was initially stimulated by commercial interests in the gold of West Africa and later strengthened by religious (i.e., Islamic) and political motives. It was probably during the fourteenth century that Islamized Mande traders, The Dyula, discovered and began exploiting the Akan goldfields. A reading of the inscriptions and stylistic analysis of the bowls revealed that they were made in Egypt or Syria during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The analysis of Arabic and European documentary evidence, the archaeological record, oral traditions and contextual data suggests that they were carried to central Ghana by Dyula merchants where they initially functioned in a Muslim context (i.e., as ablution bowls). The vessels were subsequently acquired by non-Muslim Akan and assimiliated into their culture as religious objects. Northern artisans (Mande lorho) and Middle Eastern brassware like the six Syrio-Egyptian brass vessels were instrumental in the development of Akan metalworking traditions. The introduction of lost wax casting technology (c. 1400 A.D.) appears to have been associated with the Mande presence among the northern Akan. The imported brassware served as models for the first locally cast cuprous objects. There is a good deal of supportive data from the nineteenth century attesting to the importance given exotica in both religious and secular contexts. Studying the group of Arabic-inscribed vessels has afforded an opportunity to consider how and why exotic material culture is integrated into Akan culture.

Return to CEFIKS Homepage